Mad Catz Under Fire

Share.

By M. Wiley

Mad Catz Interactive and Fire International today responded to a lawsuit filed on February 10, 2003 against both parties by Electro Source, which does business as Pelican Accessories. The suit, filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that Mad Catz and U.K-based, Fire International competed unfairly with Pelican in the development and marketing of certain video game products. Which ones? Who the hell knows?

Mad Catz and Fire are unaware of any basis for, or facts to support, the claims made by Pelican, and believe the claims are completely and entirely baseless and without merit. In particular all intellectual property being used by Mad Catz in its GameShark products was either developed independently or acquired by Mad Catz when it purchased the GameShark brand from InterAct in January 2003.

Mad Catz and Fire will vigorously defend themselves against the suit and will seek to recover all costs and expenses imposed on them by Pelican resulting from the lawsuit. Additionally, both Mad Catz and Fire are considering filing countersuits against Pelican and its principals.

Morris Perlis, Mad Catz' CEO, and Jason Cooper, Group Managing Director of Fire, jointly issued the following statement, "We are outraged at the claims of Pelican, which are based on total inaccuracies. This ludicrous lawsuit is baseless and spurious. It is an offensive attempt to improperly use the courts to achieve an end that Pelican could not achieve commercially. GameShark was acquired by Mad Catz in an auction that was fairly and legally conducted. It is an affront to suggest otherwise. We will be strongly and forcefully defending this lawsuit and have no doubts of our complete success. We look forward to presenting the true facts. In particular, any attempt to intimidate our customers will not be tolerated."